The Journey Home
by bhut
Summary: After their first attempt to save Skye fell flat, Coulson and others are returning to the Playground to figure out their next strategy. However, Fitz and Ward still need to clear the air between them, and Hunter appears to be flirting with Kara Lynn... "Frenemy" spoilers.


**The Journey Home**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners._

After their near-successful fiasco of saving Skye, the mood on the quinjet, as it flies back to the Playground, is subdued. Hunter is quiet because he's been shot, Fitz is quiet because Ward is on the quinjet – and the bad blood between the two men is nowhere being gone, Kara Lynn...wasn't actually quiet – more like subdued, as she whispered something to Ward (in fact, they were having an entire conversation with each other – but in whispers, and without Deathlok, no one could hear what they were saying to each other, sadly), and Grant reciprocated, in equally quiet voice, so the mood on the quinjet is...subdued.

Coulson hates it, when things are quiet and subdued. May may love it (he has made a pun, ha-ha, thank God he hadn't said it aloud, or else it might get back to Melinda, and then she'd have his hide for something _that_ bad), but he doesn't. It is not right – but then again, things are not right, not at all. If things have been right, Skye would already been here with them, Mike would still be here with them, Fitz would actually let it off his chest regarding Ward (though truly, Coulson wasn't making any bets on this one – while Leo wasn't exactly an introvert, he wasn't an extravert either, not after the pod incident, and tended to keep things under the lid, rather than put them out), and Ward...Ward would be trying to manipulate Skye into accepting him back...or not.

Coulson is not sure just what the relationship between Grant and Kara Lynn is: obviously, the two of them intended to settle down and have a home together, but yet...something does not feel right – there is no tension, there is no little physical touches that happen when a couple is in love (**cough** Fitz and Simmons **cough**), but yet there is no fear, no signs of domination from either her or Ward...so where do they fit?

Coulson is aware that he is profiling; he is aware that he tends to become carried away while doing it, but he cannot help it: he is not some sort of a fighting machine like Melinda (or Grant, for that matter), he is not primarily a fighter, but a thinker, he needs to think and to strategize and to work things through beforehand, before wading into the melee or ranged fighting first.

Melinda _is_ different; maybe Grant (and Kara Lynn) is too – they are able to think on the fly and improvise, especially in fighting; Melinda even now tends to admit to Coulson (but only to him, and grudgingly, quietly), that her victory over Ward was a closer thing than she would have liked, so Coulson doesn't like the idea of fighting the younger man, not unless it is necessary.

And now, it seems, he just might end doing exactly that – he saw Grant look several times in his direction, and there was no warmth in the younger man's gaze, not at all. Grant Ward had saved Coulson just few hours ago, watched his back just like in the old times, but that was before he had figured out that Skye was not with S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, and what does that mean, Coulson does not know – not yet, but he intends on figuring it out...among other things.

"Ward," he finally says, startling the other man, "what has happened with Bakshi? I thought that you had him under control?"

"We do," Grant nods, without breaking eye contact – this is a dominance fight, and both of them know it. "Bakshi has captured Deathlok in order for us to have a man on the inside, and now that that man is a cyborg, it will make the following campaign against Hydra easier."

Coulson does not break eye contact either. "That wasn't according to plan," he snaps.

"Yes it was. You wanted Bakshi to get Deathlok in? We got Bakshi to get Deathlok in – and for a longer-term effect," Grant did not budge. "Now your new grand plan against Hydra can continue to unfold, so relax."

"Hydra? You think this is about Hydra-"

"I don't care," Grant shakes his head. "Kara Lynn, do you care?"

"Not really," the woman pipes from behind her partner, her own gaze cool and almost snake-like in its calculative quality. "I told you my opinion of S.H.I.E.L.D. awhile ago, didn't I, Grant?"

"You did," Grant nods, before switching his attention back to Coulson. "And for your statement, sir, to elaborate, I don't care about Hydra anymore. I don't care about S.H.I.E.L.D anymore – I told you that before, didn't I? After you rescue Peterson from Hydra and win his eternal gratitude, I am sure that he will confirm this as well – but that is not any hair of our backs. We got you in, we got your plan against Hydra rolling, and now we're leaving."

"We don't want any favors from you either; we don't want anything to do with you," Kara Lynn spoke up in those calm, cool tones, "so you can take your Tahiti or whatever it was and eat it."

"You told her?"

"I was there!" the word 'fool' remains unspoken but Coulson can hear it well enough. "I heard it."

Coulson winces. Kara Lynn may have problems with her memory, but not with her _physical_ memory, not with some ingrained instincts that not even Whitehall had been able to erase: he underestimated her once more, and once more he was lucky that no one gotten physically hurt because of it.

"We're all getting distracted," Grant cuts-in. "The thing is that, Coulson, is that we had a deal, correct? We help you with Hydra, and you leave us alone. Well, Kara Lynn and I, we helped you with Hydra, so our side of the deal is done."

"No it isn't," Coulson exhales. "Skye-"

"Skye isn't with Hydra," there is emotion in Grant's voice, now, and it is not the infatuation that Coulson was used to hear in conjunction with Skye's name during Grant's stay in the Playground cell. "Neither me nor Kara Lynn were high enough in Hydra's hierarchy, true, but an eyeless man who could teleport? If there had been such an agent in Hydra's ranks, we would have heard about him through the rumors, if nothing else. You're going up the wrong tree."

"And the right tree, then, is?"

"There were rumors, strange rumors, going around a place in China's mountains, of strange people with strange powers living there," Kara Lynn reluctantly speaks up. "Dr. Whitehall, Whitehall," her face twitches and distorts, regardless of the mask on it, and she grabs Grant with both of her hands and does not let go of him – not that he resists.

"Whitehall," the other ex-agent continues, instead, "assumed that this was either an enclave of Eric Lensherr's people or yet another version of the myth of Shangri-La. Thus, he never investigated it. But odds are, that he was wrong – he was wrong about many things, you know?"

"You mean, Skye can be in China? Yes, this is possible, this matches the information that we found at the site of the gunfight," Coulson muses, before shooting Grant a look. Grant's mask is in place, while Kara Lynn's conveys that she is not impressed much by his powers of deduction or by him.

"Anyways, Skye isn't with Hydra-" Grant begins anew, but Coulson interrupts him:

"But she might well be after Hydra goes after them, which might be sooner than you think," he shoots back. "They have found Skye and her new friends once, they can do so again."

Grant says nothing; silence stretches. "And-?" he finally speaks up. "You expected me to do what, exactly? Go crazy at the very mention of Skye's name and follow your new plan wholeheartedly, regardless of the fact that you despise and probably plan to put me back into a cell once this is over? Yes? Sir, she has shot me, so whatever we once had, may have had – it is over."

"And whose fault is that?" Coulson does not back down.

"Mine, if you want to hear this," Grant shrugs. "But my point is that you didn't need to lie and keep Skye out of this, sir. At that point of time we all assumed that she was kidnapped by Hydra, so there was no point of keeping her name out of it. It would not have changed anything – and maybe it did not. You want us to do our part? We will do it, and after it – we are done. We do not want anything from S.H.I.E.L.D., sir, so consider this a freebie from us, yes."

Coulson pauses, looking for something in Grant's dark eyes, in Kara Lynn's pale ones. Part of him wants to say 'Yes! That's my girl!' when he hears how Skye had shot Grant. But another part of him feels that this is neither the time nor the place to do so, thus what he says instead is:

"Can you honestly tell me, Grant, that this is the case?"

Grant hesitates and turns to his partner. "Can you give me a prompt, here?" he asks her.

Kara Lynn nods and pulls out a notepad. She leafs through it, before settling on one. "Talk to the hand," she says in a precise, emotionless, mechanical voice. "Talk to the finger."

And with her other hand she shows Coulson the finger in question.

Coulson is not used to that, and frankly the whole situation is absurd, in a surreal way, so he just goggles. Hunter, however, speaks for the first time since this conversation begins, or rather – he breaks into giggles.

"Smart _and_ beautiful!" he says, chuckling merrily. "If things don't work out with Grant there, you can always marry me!"

There is a pause, and a very bad. With slow, jerky movements, very unlike those that had been used previously, Kara Lynn puts her notepad back away; in fact, she almost drops it entirely, if Grant had not grabbed it and put it away instead. Kara Lynn doesn't even notice that, instead, she presses a spot where her chin meets her neck – and her mask vanishes, revealing her true face...or rather, a mass of scars in a face-like pattern.

"Beautiful, am I?" Kara Lynn's voice is quivering like tensely wound string or wire. "Marry me, would you, agent Hunter? Say that again, _to my face_!"

There is a pause, as Hunter opens and closes his mouth several times without making any sound or voice; Coulson isn't sure if this is the first time since the Englishman began to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. or not, but it's irrelevant: Kara Lynn's true face forms a disguised expression, before she turns around, grabs Grant and begins to weep, very, very quietly.

"There, there, Kara Lynn," Grant gently says, even as he pets her hair in a comforting way, suggesting that this is not the first time something like that has happened. "I am sure that agent Hunter didn't mean – he's just a British idiot. Inbred, probably, too."

Some of his usual energy returns to Hunter, indignantly, he opens his mouth to confront the bigger man – and meets Grant's gaze. Coulson cannot fully see it, but Hunter deflates almost instantly; he closes his mouth again, looking thoughtful.

"Well, that's just ducky," Fitz speaks up instead. He pauses, but there is no reply. "Grant, you did it again." Still no reply.

"Fitz," Coulson speaks up warningly: his inner strategist tells him quite plainly that they are in very dangerous waters here, but for once in his life the young plows on, ignoring Coulson:

"You realize that the mask is probably making your condition _worse_?" he asks Kara Lynn. "Without it-"

"I am not walking around without it," Kara Lynn does not wait for Fitz to finish. "I know that it makes things worse, but without it? Things still wouldn't be better!"

Fitz opens his mouth, sees Coulson mouth silently at him: 'Female logic", and pauses, thinking, before speaking up all the same. "So, you've been helping Kara Lynn all along?"

"We've been helping each other," Grant says simply. "Go on, Fitz."

"Thank you," Fitz replies with barely acidic sarcasm. "Now, let's see. You are helping Kara Lynn. You tried to help Skye in a misguided way. You helped us with Donnie Gill even though I tried to hurt you. Even before Garret and Hydra...yeah, you get the picture. Ward, what is wrong with you? You, you, you cannot be a hero and a villain at the same time! Why did you sunk us in that pod; did you hate us?"

"Yes," Grant says simply, forcing Fitz to gape in him in surprise. "You wanted to kill John, and he was my father – maybe not in a biological sense, but in every other? Yes."

"You hated your father," Fitz says at last. "You killed him. The rest of your family too."

"Yes," Grant nods simply. "Except for my brother's soon-to-be-ex-wife, now his well-to-do widow, and their children, who will continue the Ward family line long after I'm gone." He pauses and looks into the distance. "I make no excuses for my actions, only explanations, and maybe not even then. Yes, John has warped me, probably, in a manner not unlike what Whitehall did to Kara Lynn, but back then? I did not care. You tried to kill him, Fitz, you and Simmons, and though Raina had been able to revive him with that alien goop, it did not matter. He still began to fall apart, only mentally; the end result...ask Coulson, I think he saw it." He looks thoughtful. "But that isn't the point, is it, Fitz? The point is that you've tried to kill my father, and I tried to kill you because of it, and I'm sure that if I tried to kill _your_ father, you would try to kill me too-"

"Stop it," Fitz says, trying to pick himself together – he is not used to hearing people admit that they _do_ hate him, for one thing – but he isn't giving up. "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen! _We_ were a _team_! _We_ were a _family_!"

"...Just how bad was your family?" Kara Lynn speaks up before Grant can. Hearing her voice cools Fitz down, just a bit.

"It's not that they were bad, more like indifferent. I never knew my parents, I was raised by my aunt and uncle..." he trails away, before continuing on. "Before I met Jemma, I didn't know about S.H.I.E.L.D., or... a lot of other things. I didn't have a lot of friends either, but neither did I have many enemies..." he pauses and finishes: "Do you hate me still, Ward?"

"I could ask you the same question," Grant replies evenly.

"I," Fitz exhales, as he looks very thoughtfully, "don't know."

"I understand," Grant nods in reply. "I'd like to say that as well, but...John's gone, and from what I've gleamed, nothing can bring him back. So...I do not. Hate you anymore, Fitz, because it would be pointless."

There is another pause. "I think that that was supposed to be _my_ line," the younger man finally speaks-up.

Grant shrugs.

"If I may," Coulson opens his mouth, when he realizes that it was not him he said those words, but rather Hunter. "If I may?" the Englishman shoots a look at Coulson, suggesting that it isn't really a question, but more of a statement, so he waves his hands indicating that Hunter can continue.

"Right, well, where was I? Hunter takes a breath. "Ah, right. Miss Palamas?"

"Yes?" Kara Lynn eyed Hunter with uncertainty, perhaps for the first time since they met.

"I, uh, I haven't made the best first impression on you, I understand, though I confess that I haven't been at my best lately, and not just because I have been shot – _that's_ just a flesh wound, you know?" He paused, took another breath, and continued, in a less cocky tone of voice. "Anyways, I _still_ think that you're a very smart and lovely woman and I will win you over."

"Don't you have a girlfriend already?" Kara Lynn is actually looking more hostile than less at this declaration.

"It's an ex-wife, actually," Lance himself grows sad at these words. "We've been divorced for a while now; have a child, but it's complicated."

"You want me to be a rebound bandage to your loss?" Kara Lynn is not backing down.

"Honey, no one considering you to be a bandage anything," Hunter says with a leer, which vanishes instantly, as Grant gets onto his feet, and-

-and Coulson suddenly finds himself between the two men, even as Fitz is doing the same, and Kara Lynn is pulling Grant backwards, asking the latter not to kill Hunter, because the latter isn't worth it...

"Hunter," Coulson hisses: Grant is nowhere near the level of the Incredible Hulk, but he is still a very big man, a professional killer, and several things besides that. "You really need to change your approach, if you don't want to die instead."

"Good point," Hunter replied, when Fury's toolbox activated, stopping all other activity in the quinjet.

"Fitz? Director Coulson?" Simmons spoke from the other end. "Can you talk?"

"Hello, Jemma, what's up?" Fitz said brightly, almost in his old manner. The Englishwoman was not fooled, though:

"What is going on here?" she asked, instead.

"We've stopped Ward from killing Hunter after Hunter put his moves on Kara Lynn – again," Fitz gave the aforementioned Hunter a dark look. "How are things at your end?"

"...you're not joking, are you?" Jemma said after a thoughtful pause. "Anyways, ah, you're returning to the Playground, are you?"

"Yes we are," Coulson said calmly. "Agents Mack and Morse are landing the quinjet even as we speak." (The others gave an incredulous look to Hunter; the latter flushed, but did not back down.) "And we bring new news about Hydra too – and Skye."

"Really? That's good – about Skye, I mean, not about Hydra," Simmons tried to shoot a dark look at Ward, but the latter failed to notice it. "Er, well, some other agents are in the know, and-"

"And we want to know about the Delta protocol, Phil," May took over from Simmons. "We want to know all about it." Her tone broke no arguments.

"And you will," Coulson sighed. "When we finally get inside the Playground, you will."

"I'll hold you to it..."

_End_


End file.
